


I Dream of You (and the Thought of Growing Old)

by endemictoearth



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-08
Updated: 2013-03-08
Packaged: 2018-04-09 10:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4344161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endemictoearth/pseuds/endemictoearth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title is taken from an Oasis song, and pretty much sums up what's going on in this fic. Rae and Finn separately meditate on the distant future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Dream of You (and the Thought of Growing Old)

Adults think that teenagers are self-centered and short-sighted. Which they are, most of the time. But teenagers also have an almost unrivaled capacity for moments of philosophical meditation on the nature of their very existence. They have both shallows and depths, and nothing much in-between.  
  
Rae lay prone on her bed, staring at the ceiling. She hadn’t seen Finn for two days, possibly a record in the three months they’d been going out. He was out of town for a cousin’s wedding, and it was family only. He’d almost told his parents he wasn’t going, at least not if Rae couldn’t come, too, but finally decided to just suck it up and deal.   
  
Usually, when she was alone in her room, and her thoughts drifted to Finn, it was to wonder how much longer they’d be together before he chucked her for someone fitter. She tried to be rational about the situation, and say that no matter how brief their time together, she was happy that he had chosen her at all. But, those moments led quickly to her being jealous of fictional girls that SHE had imagined.  
  
However, thinking of Finn at a wedding sent her mind down another path this afternoon. She had never, not once, imagined what her own wedding would be like. Until a few months ago, she’d never even been kissed. And even now, thoughts of a wedding day, with it’s poufy white dress, morning coats, solemn ceremony followed by a frantic reception crammed with people, didn’t appeal to her.   
  
But, thinking of the wedding night, and everything that came after, that filled her with a tingly feeling.   
  
She and Finn hadn’t done IT yet. As much as she had fantasized about it before they got together, though they’d come close and had done plenty besides, she still had a bit of a block when it came to stripping off completely. Finn was being brilliant about it, but she added her reluctance to consummate the relationship to the list of reasons Finn was hours away from dumping her.  
  
But, beyond sex, she really wondered what getting married to Finn might be like. She hadn’t grown up in a household with an example of a stable, loving relationship. Her mum had had boyfriends, of course, but they were mostly annoying, and never stayed around for very long. Her mum and Karim seemed really happy, and Rae was warming to the idea of having him around, but it was early days yet. With her paltry experience observing adult relationships, she tried to imagine herself living with Finn. All the days and nights AFTER the wedding night. How would they be with each other?  
  
She thought that the living together part would be fantastic. At first, she pictured them in his house, but, obviously, they wouldn’t be living with his parents. Then, she got more realistic and tried to picture the two of them in a flat, like Kester’s, which seemed better.   
  
What would they do for work? It seemed too unrealistic that they would both be DJs at No Crap FM, but maybe she would be a music journalist? And he could work the board at a recording studio, mixing albums. She smiled at the idea. She’d cook and he’d clean up. Maybe they’d get a dog! She wondered how long they could actually stay together, if she didn’t fuck it up tomorrow.   
  
They were both 17 now, she’d just had her birthday last week, so if the average life expectancy in Britain was around 76 years old, that was nearly 60 years! Would that be enough time? Would they be able to say and do everything they wanted to? What would they be like when they were old? Rae figured she’d eventually have a walker or a mobility scooter, and for some reason she pictured Finn with glasses and a cloth cap, slightly bent over. The thought made her smile, but she knew if she ever told anyone, they’d think she was weird beyond words for thinking about being an actual old married couple.  
  
Especially because Finn was her first boyfriend, and people nowadays didn’t marry their first boyfriends. You broke up with them dramatically in a car park and avoided them until you both went away to university. Or, you went away to university, promising to be faithful, and quietly drifted apart by the end of the second semester.   
  
So, she turned over on her bed, picked up her diary, and made a couple of cryptic notes about cloth caps and scooters, just to remind herself in old age that she had once dreamt about what it would like to grow old with Finn.   
  
***  
  
Meanwhile, Finn was uncomfortably squashed between his dad and his uncle in a church pew, was having very similar thoughts. He glanced up at the couple clasping hands at the altar, and imagined Rae under the filmy veil and himself in the stupid gray jacket with tails. He’d never thought about marrying anyone before. Well, apart from in primary school, when he’d wanted to marry his Year 2 teacher Mrs. Gillies.   
  
He shook his head slightly, trying to dislodge the image from his mind. Guys his age weren’t supposed to fantasize about marrying their girlfriends. He’d only had a couple of steady girls before Rae, and neither one had lasted long. He’d always been a “live for the moment” type, and having thoughts about the future spooked him a bit. Strangely, he found himself doing the same mental math Rae had done. They had just been talking about life expectancy in the lame Health & Wellness class his school made everyone take. Average life span in Britain: 76 years. That was a potential of 59 more years with Rae. Part of him was terrified at the thought: that was three or four more lifetimes.   
  
After the ceremony, they hung outside the church for pictures. Finn crossed his arms and put on a fake smile for the family picture, and then kicked at the stones in the drive. He still didn’t know how he felt about a virtual eternity, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it.   
  
At the reception, three or four girls tried to catch his eye, and one of them had even come over, bold as brass, and asked him to dance with her. He politely declined, and moved over to sit with his parents and great-aunt Madge and great-uncle Wilf.   
  
“Young Finn!” Wilf exclaimed, as he sat down. “How have you been keeping?”   
  
“Pretty well,” Finn admitted. “How are yous two?”  
  
“Oh, you don’t want to hear about our boring lives!” Madge scoffed. “Your mum tells me you’ve got a young woman.”  
  
Finn grinned and looked up at her. “Yeah, her name’s Rae. As in Rachel,” he quickly added, seeing his great-aunt’s confusion.  
  
“Well, I hope she’s treating you right!”  
  
“Oh, she is, Auntie Madge. Don’t worry.” He looked down at her wrinkled hand, and saw the bright gold band on her ring finger. “I hope Uncle Wilf’s treating you right! How long have ya been married, anyway?” He asked, hoping he sounded casual.  
  
“Fifty-three years, if you can believe it!” Auntie Magde reached her hand over to grasp Wilf’s, and the two shared a brief smile. “We got married when I was nineteen. Wilf was just twenty-one, and we had no idea what we were in for! But enough about us, tell us more about Rachel. What is she like?”  
  
“She’s …” Finn tried to think how to describe her to his 73 year old aunt. “She’s amazing. We like a lot of the same music, but she’ll be the first to tell me if something I put on is crap. Sorry … not to her liking.” He smiled sheepishly.  
  
“Oh, Madge was exactly the same!” Wilf exclaimed. “She doesn’t suffer fools, so how she ended up with me is anyone’s guess.” Madge swatted him playfully on the arm.   
  
Finn smiled, because he could exactly picture Rae doing that to him in fifty years. And strangely, the thought didn’t scare him. He’d never known anyone as interesting and complex as Rae before. Complexity usually made him feel stupid and uncomfortable. He’d generally tried to keep everything to what he could manage. Easy. Simple. He felt that even though he probably knew Rae better than anyone (well, other than her mum), there were still so many layers and moods and facets to discover about her. He believed that however long they stayed together, he’d never be bored. On the other hand, he could easily imagine her realizing how utterly boring he was next week and calling it a day.   
  
He excused himself for a minute. He’d seen there was a payphone outside the reception hall. He put a pound in the coin slot and listened to it thunk inside. He dialed Rae’s number and waited. The line rang five times before he heard Rae’s voice answer, “Hello?”  
  
“Hiya,” he said, smiling into the receiver.  
  
“Oh, hi!” She instantly perked up at the sound of his voice. “How was the wedding? Are you having a nice time?”  
  
“The wedding was alright. I’m having a crap time, ‘cause you’re not here with me.”  
  
“Awww, sorry, babe. When do you get back?”  
  
“Tomorrow afternoon. We’re leaving here at nine, or so my dad swears.” He paused for a second. “I really miss ya, Rae.”  
  
“I really miss you, too, Finn. It’s been so boring here without you. I finished my essay for class Friday night. Mum’s on nights, and everyone else was busy this weekend, so I’ve had plenty of time to think about stuff.”  
  
“Oh, yeah?” Finn hoped his voice didn’t betray his nervousness. He knew from past conversations that Rae didn’t always do well with time alone to think. “Like what?”  
  
“Mostly daft stuff.” Before she could stop herself she said, “I was thinking about what it would be like if we were still together when we were ancient. Crazy, right?”  
  
Finn was too stunned to reply right away, and her voice got high and fast to try and cover the fact that she felt stupid. “Yeah, I mean, how stupid is that? We’ve only been dating a few months and nobody ever… I mean, I never expected … Look, we should probably drop it, yeah?”  
  
Finn took a deep breath. “I was sitting with my great-aunt and uncle at the reception tonight.”  
  
Rae was relieved that he changed the topic and didn’t seem to be too mad about what she said. “Oh, yeah?”  
  
“Yeah. They’ve been married for over fifty years and they’re still really happy with each other. So, it is pretty weird you thinking about us being ancient together, because I was just doing the same thing.”  
  
Her voice got husky, and he thought he heard her sniff back a tear. “Oh. Yeah?”  
  
“Yes, Rae.”  
  
“That IS weird.” She couldn’t think of what to say next.  
  
“Fuck!” Finn shouted.   
  
“What?”  
  
“The pips are going, and I don’t have another coin. I love you, Rae! See you tomor–” The line went silent.  
  
Even though she knew he was gone, she echoed, “I love you, too.” Now she really had something to dream about.


End file.
